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January 21, 2012

The Horrid Dungeon of the Syllabi!!! A Fragment of a Gothick Romance

Editor's note: The following fragment came into my hands after an archeological expedition to Brock-Port discovered a miraculously still-functional electronic device, known to the ancients as a "laptop computer," which contained several documents of a most curious description. Although the bytes were considerably degraded, we were able to decode the narrative below, which throws a most shocking light upon the manners and customs of academic life in the twenty-first century.

...Icy winds, as cutting and uncaring as an anonymous peer review, blasted around the crumbling brick towers. They piled the dank, dirty snow into treacherous heaps, concealing deadly ice patches that threatened the lives of any innocents who dared venture beyond the doors. But those trapped inside were held fast by cruel orders, and heavy chains, and evil spells beyond description. For this was the Dungeon of the Syllabi, to which all faculty who left writing their syllabi to the day before classes were consigned. Woe!...

...Shivering in her chilly cell, Elle P. hunched over her laptop, staring bleary-eyed at a syllabus for the Gothic Novel. Her chains of USB cords clacked softly as she sought to relieve her aching back. Beyond the steel door, she heard the wails of fellow inmates, bemoaning their fates as they pounded unceasingly at their uncaring keyboards. Some of them, it was rumored, had been sent to the dread Dungeon every semester for years and years upon end. Elle shuddered at the thought of the bitter torments that awaited those who failed to complete their miserable task: incomplete assignments! Late papers! Sneering student evaluations! The disdain of her colleagues! Whimpering softly as she bemoaned her fate, all the more horrid for being self-induced, Elle burst into a song of despair--but her voice soon died away, for she had never been very good at rhyming on the fly...

...Finally, the gnawing pains in her belly drove Elle to abandon her office in search of what sustenance the Dungeon had to offer. Timidly, she crept out into the halls, trembling as the howls and shrieks of the other lost souls escalated in volume. She inched past the mysterious, fading posters attached to the walls, which blazoned forth the agonies suffered by prisoners past, and, fearing to take the clanking elevator--for who knows if it might suffer some mysterious breakdown, trapping her there to die of starvation!--she crept down the steps. There, standing before her, were vending machines, filled with unhealthy food intended to inflict cavities, sugar rushes, and halitosis on all who dared consume it. But the demands of the syllabi forced Elle to indulge...

...Behind her, a SOUND! Elle whirled about and found herself faced with some unearthly creature, tall and indistinct of form, its features obscured with a scarf, its body wrapped in a heavy coat, its feet encased in fuzzy boots. Her thoughts spun and crashed uselessly into each other in what remained of her brain. Was this the ghost rumored to haunt the building's halls? Was it some vampire, out to suck her life's blood? Or, even worse, was it the embodiment of the feared SERVER OUTAGE, which had been known to destroy faculty lives with one zap of its electronic paw? Elle's senses swam, and she felt herself swooning to the floor, at the mercy of this strange beast, when it spoke:

"I'm, like, looking for the computer lab. Is it, um, on this floor?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Elle pointed one trembling finger in the direction of the computer lab.

"Cool, dude! Thanks."

...

...She had completed her task! The curse would soon be lifted! Elle once again attempted to lift her voice in song, but ceased when the next cell's occupant complained that she was off-key. Nevertheless, she joyously printed out her syllabi and skipped to the door, contemplating her future after her release from the Dungeon. Never again would she fall prey to that dire demon, Procrastination. Her life would be one of virtue, cheerfulness, and, above all, punctuality. As she neared the office ahead, she saw other inmates, all congratulating each other with great excitement over their impending depatures from this fearsome pile.

Yet, all of a sudden, a terrific SHRIEK arose from amidst the crowd. The congratulations turned to screams, moans, and gasps of agony beyond mortal description. Elle rushed to the office as she saw one sufferer after another faint to the floor, clutching their syllabi in their cold hands. What could it be? What new evil? Why were faculty being brought low at the very moment of their triumph?

And then--she SAW. Shaken to her core, she sobbed witlessly for a moment, then swooned (again) to the floor. For the punishment dreaded beyond all others had been inflicted upon them. Upon the photocopier, there was a sign, inked in a red more bloody than any human blood: